


Firefight

by triggernometry



Series: Slice of Afterlife [1]
Category: Flight Rising
Genre: Gen, in which haj gets the hell kicked right out of him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-12 01:44:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16863883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/triggernometry/pseuds/triggernometry
Summary: A little bit about the night Booth finally caught up with Daur, from the perspective of the person who least wants to be there.





	Firefight

It's not that Klagohaj doesn't _notice_ his face is getting smashed in, it's just that he's stuck on how much he doesn't _feel it._ The pain he'd expect from how hard Daur's currently hitting him is just not there.

It's weird, is all.

Above him, Daur is still snarling blood and damnation, half-blind with rage and the one good punch he'd managed to land on her face before she'd full-on bodyslammed him into the ground. She's got him pinned down on the sand between her knees, so tight it feels like a damn vice, holding him so she can just wail on his head with both fists.

In hindsight, trying to challenge the Wasteland's most notorious snapper road agent to a one-on-one fight was a real bad idea. Fortunately, it wasn't even _his_ , so he doesn't have to feel especially embarrassed about how stupid he is. _This_ time. 

Daur's right fist is definitely enhanced somehow. Klagohaj forces open the one eye that's not entirely unresponsive and squints: yep, she's wearing spiked knuckles on that hand. She brings that fist down hard into the blackness where his other eye would normally be seeing something, and he feels the cheekbone on that side of his head tip its hat and bid him good day, retreating farther into his skull than it has any business doing.

It still doesn't hurt, but it sure as hell makes his thoughts _real_ fuzzy.

Daur's snarling and snapping breaks off enough for her to get a few choice words in. Klagohaj has trouble following along, given the circumstances: something about vermin and betrayal.

_Yeah, cuz, tell me 'bout it_ , Klagohaj thinks but doesn't say. He's not sure if he could speak even if he wanted to: the barest hint of body awareness left to him tells him his jaw is probably not exactly in mint condition right now.

He brings one hand up in a vague, halfhearted attempt to block some of the blows raining down on his face. It almost kind of works, but not in the way he plans: Daur's distracted by his arm enough to grab it and give it the wrenching of its life. He feels the elbow joint divorce itself with a meaty snap that's only just about audible over the incredible ringing currently in his ears, the roar of the fire behind them, and the inarticulate rage pouring out of Daur's mouth.

Klagohaj gets  the distinct impression that Daur means to rip his arm _off_ , which is a thoroughly interesting proposition but one for which he'd rather not be present. He flails uselessly at her with his good arm and she backhands him with the spike-knuckled hand so hard his head snaps sideways, affording him a view of some of the carnage of what used to be Daur's gang's campsite.

The nighttime Wasteland sky is black behind a curtain of fire and smoke straining skyward from the remains of a makeshift incendiary device meeting a parked wagon and a tent at speed. Klagohaj's half-functional eye vaguely informs him of the outline of somebody's body in the blaze, but it's too dark and too far away for him to really pick out who it is, if he even knows them.

It's probably _not_ that goddamn witch lady at the center of all this mess, anyway. Klagohaj has _never_ been so lucky, even back when he was alive.

As if he's summoned her with his own irresponsible thoughts, he sees her, stepping out of the fire like a damn vision of eternal torment. The fire behind her makes her look like a storm dressed in a long coat, black and heavy with the promise of having your day thoroughly derailed.

He can see the outline of the shotgun in her hand.

“Dzngh,” Klagohaj tries. He means to say Daur's name, but his tongue has been corralled by a mix of broken teeth and a jaw that he can now _definitely_ tell ain't screwed on straight anymore. He tries pointing, but manages only to flop his good arm uselessly around in the dirt.

Ah, she'll get the gist. The goddamn witch lady's got her gun up and the shot is so damn loud it just about rattles the putty of his brain right out of his ears.

He feels Daur's weight half-shoved off him. The bones in his neck crack interestingly as he lets his head loll the other way to see her scrambling backward on her heels in the dirt, clutching her shoulder and spitting invective. The dark and fire bleeds all the colour out of everything out here: he can only tell that there's something dark on her shoulder and neck now, spreading fast through the cloth of her shirt. Probably blood.

Klagohaj looks up in time to see the goddamn witch lady step over him to get to Daur. The gun's pump cracks startlingly loud; a spent shell casing bounces off his leg and disappears somewhere into the dirt beside him. The goddamn witch lady fires again, this time aiming for Daur's leg, and he gets the impression of something flying off Daur's knee and disappearing into the dark on the other side of her. He's vaguely aware that they're screaming at each other – with words, probably – but their voices are garbled by the angry ants swarming where his brain used to be and anyway, this is _definitely_ not any of his business.

Klagohaj rolls onto his side with what feels like monumental effort, away from the goddamn witch lady and Daur and, if he can have his way, at long last, _Mother please, if you're listening,_ this entire sad affair. The one arm won't obey him, so he just lets it flop uselessly along while he claws his way up with the good hand left to him.

Behind him, the screaming has – died down, actually. Definitely still a ruckus happening over there, though. Klagohaj is well familiar with the sound of meat hitting other meat at speed; Daur gave him a quick primer on it only a minute ago.

It's none of his business.

Klagohaj forces himself to his knees, which is bad enough, and then staggers to his feet, which is worse. His head spins. He takes a few unsteady steps forward to try and keep himself from just falling face-first into the dust. It works out in that he does not tumble headlong into the dust, but anybody watching him would probably hesitate to describe him as _walking_ or even, strictly speaking, upright _._ He moves towards the  fire – because it's bright, and in the opposite direction of the fight behind him, and because it's big enough his half-functional ant-brain won't miss it or forget about it in between the stuttering semblance of a blink his one good eye has got going on.

Maybe if he can get on the other side of the fire, he'll be hidden from view and he can just – keep going. _Walk the dawn_ , as they used to say around Daur's campfire, wherever the hell _that_ is now in all this mess.

  
He definitely had a better escape plan than this two weeks ago – hell, two _days_ ago – but that was _before_ Daur reconfigured his skull and replaced his brain with an ant hive. He absently prods the side of his head with his good hand, and feels something sticky with too much give and too many random sharp bits poking out in it.

So, he's probably had better days.

It's harder than he initially thinks to not just stumble right into the fire when he gets closer to it. He wonders briefly if it'd even burn him, and the ludicrousness of the idea draws a wretched jittery sound from him that is probably what passes for a laugh in his current state.

He edges around the flaming wreckage carefully, until he gets to the end of it on one side, and then he starts staggering his way past it. Beyond the ruin of burning wagon and whoever-that-is, he can see shadows spread around in the ground, disappearing off into the dark: bodies. He recognises a few of the closer ones – not friends, exactly, but gunned down in the sand is probably not the way he'd prefer to remember them. If he'd a choice.

Behind him, he hears a _very loud_ scream.

It's a primal, gut-twisting, bone-deep sound that's got plenty of pain and fury in it, but on a level well above Klagohaj's proverbial pay-grade, even on his cleverer days. The sound draws him up short, and he stands there, feeling the smoke of the fire wash over him and only dimly registering how he can't smell it at all.

The scream falters, dies down. He takes one more step forward and then he hears it again.

He doesn't want to turn around. He doesn't want to _know._ Whatever that scream is about, it's _not_ any of his business.

He turns around.

His sight is next to worthless right now, but he can see the two figures well enough: one lying prone on the dust, the other kneeling beside it, wailing. The wailing one is the goddamn witch lady, because of course it is.

Klagohaj tries to sigh, feels something wet and sharp catch in his throat and coughs reflexively. He spits whatever it is on the sand by his boot and starts back the way he came, because his brain is full of _ants_ and he hasn't had a bad enough day just yet, apparently.

He gets close enough until he can see Daur's body clear enough to make out the long, dark, wet line across her throat. There's a _lot_ of dark on her. The sand around her – around both of them – is soaked with it. He doesn't focus on that too hard. He looks at the figure crouched beside the corpse: the goddamn witch lady is on her knees in the blood and dirt, arms and wings wrapped tight to herself, and she is _sobbing._

It's a loud, hideous sound, the kind of sound people aren't _supposed_ to make. He can't tell which part of the reaction it provokes in him is worse: the way the sound seems to physically coil around him enough to make his skin crawl, or the way it seems to sink into him like fangs, chasing the ghost of a pulse through his limbs and making his heart sag with the weight of it.

“Hhh,” he tries. He means to say _hey_ , but he can just about manage a gargling hiss before the futility of the attempt catches up with him and gives up.

He walks carefully around her, making himself clearly visible before getting any closer. She starts, jerking out of her hideous grief-stricken trance and looking up at him with those deep dark eyes that're sure to set the tone for any nightmares he'll have going forward. Even in the dark, with the light blazing distantly behind her, he can see the streaks of tears cutting long wet lines through the dirt and blood on her face. One eye's already swelling up fast, distorting the lines of her face: that'll be a hell of a shiner tomorrow.

“It's not over,” she says. Her voice is rough with pain and hoarse from screaming. She sucks in a deep, wet breath that trembles on its way back out. “It's – not – _over_.” Her face crumples in on itself and she drops her head into her split-knuckled hands with a half-strangled sob that turns into a long, low, keening wail.

Well, hell. Even a pit viper's pitiable enough when it's drowning in a flash flood, isn't it?

He extends his good arm, slowly, carefully, and touches her shoulder. She doesn't recoil, doesn't lash out, doesn't even seem to notice, really, so he just hunkers down next to her and gently – _very_ gently – draws her in close to him, under his good arm and under his wing. She goes stiff a minute, and he thinks she's gonna push him away or withdraw – but then she leans all the way into him and sags against him like the strength's just up and left her all at once. In another minute, she presses her face to his chest and he can feel little pinpricks of heat where her tears soak through his shirt to the skin.

He's not sure why he holds her like this. It seems like the one thing he truly _can_ do, given the circumstances. If he was any clever, he would've taken his opening and killed her, or at least hit her in the head hard enough to give him a good lead on her. Or just left. Really, he should've just kept walking while he had the chance.

He stares out over her shoulder with his one half-decent eye at the line of his tracks leading up toward the burning wreckage, tries to focus on where he imagines the horizon line is in the dark beyond the fire. Something broken in his face clicks and settles unpleasantly. The goddamn witch lady under his wing cries a good long while, by his reckoning, though she stays leaned up against him for longer than she has tears to shed. He wouldn't comment on that even _if_ his face _wasn't_ a jelly-filled crater.

When she pulls away from him, her expression's closer to what he's used to: distant, stoic, unreadable. She stares at Daur's body a while before she gets to her feet. He follows her lead, slowly and a lot less steadily. She studies the ruin of his face a minute – her expression's inscrutable, so he doesn't get a feel for how bad it looks – before turning to take in the ruins of the camp around them.

“Burn it,” she says at last. Her breathing’s leveled out now but her voice still sounds scraped raw.  “Burn it all and let's get the hell out of here.”


End file.
